Ok I know pottery is not a primitive weapon.
But I also know we have some good potters here, and fellow experimental archaeology enthusiasts.
So excuse me if I post this topic here rather than in the "Other topics" section  

I'd like to show you my very first efforts in experimental archaeology.
With 3 friends, we built this clay furnace in 2007. The furnace is modeled on some Final Bronze Age ones found in our Region - be adviced that furnace's dome does not survive in archaeological sites, so our one is a hypothesis.
Building took more than 2 months, because we didn't buy commercial clay, but prepared our own by taking it along the rivers and by sifting it.
The video is related to the moment when we finished the furnace, and made fire to cook it.
Photos are about building the furnace and the pottery we had cooked in it. Pottery are replicas of 10th - 9th century b.C. Italian ones.
The furnace worked well, and we used it 3 times. Numerous ware has been cooked in it, but unfortunately this experiment was fated to oblivion, because the place where we built the furnace is very far from our houses.

The video... http://www.youtube.com/user/Mauro0Sub0Fipsas?feature=mhee#p/u/0/JpG8grBqyFE

Pics!













Pictures in this topic are courtesy of Doc. Fabio Fazzini!
Hope you like the stuff!
Mauro Fiorentini.

great work how did you sift the clay? i ask becuase clay has such large grains and also if you made bellows and an anvil/flat rock you have a forge

My Italian isn't good, Mauro, but that looks like "the iron that sings". Sings when you whack it hard?

That is pretty neat!  I do what is called pit firing but it really doesn't use a pit.  You build a fire, you place your to be fired pottery around it at some distance to prewarm.  When the fire burns down to coals, you rake them out in a circle an put the pots inside on pieces of broken pots.  If you set them on the ground, they will wick up enough moisture to crack when you fire them.  Then, you keep the fire burning very low, the clay I use has lots of impurities, as they bake out, the pots will turn dark, you keep the fire burning low until the pots start to get lighter.  When they are the color of dried mud, you start building the fire up until the pot is covered with fire and you keep it burning until the pots start glowing.  Then, you can let the fire burn down naturally or you can pull the pots out if you don't want any black on them.  Or, if you want them really black, you drop the glowing pot in a pile of leaves and cover it over.  You cannot let the leaves burst into flame or it will burn off part of your black coating.

Recently, I have just been using my electric kiln.  Lots easier.

Bill, we have used pit firing the last 15th of May, when we partecipated to a show about Iron Age cooking near Rome. I may have some pictures around... yes, here they are:

the pit

some of the stuff we cooked

a little diorama we showed to the kids; labels describes the models, which are based on originals found in Region Emilia Romagna.

Making the pit took about one day (we had to build a forge and a furnace too), while the cooking itself took an entire day, a night, and the day after, during which we used 160 kilos of oak and olive wood.

Little, I'd like to use wooden tools for camping too, but I'm not that good in making them (I just begun by carving a cup and a spoon   ). The fact is, that there're no evidences of wooden utensils in arcaheological diggings in my Region, while, for example, there're plenty of them in Northern Italy - while I have no original to reproduce, Northern Italy archaeologists can experiment reproductions based on a whole range of artifacts - like canoes, bows, cups, etc... from the Late Bronze Age!
Greetings,
Mauro.

Don't worry, we have archaeological marks that first pits were but scratches in the terrain, with a depth of few centimeters. They stored the pottery inside the perimeter and covered it with wood.
So your pit cooking is absolutely good 
Greetings,
Mauro.

(sorry for the bad quality of the pictures above... taking pictures is not allowed inside Italian museums so I had to deactivate the flash  )
Mauro.

Thanks, but that was not my camera, it was my girflriend's.
I tried to stay still, but it seems it wasn't enough 
Are you interested in photography, Thom?
Greetings,
Mauro.